USA > California > Kings County > History of Tulare and Kings counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 2
USA > California > Tulare County > History of Tulare and Kings counties, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the counties who have been identified with their growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 2
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The fact was that in the '49 rush to the gold fields of California many trains came hy the southern route and passed through the Four Creeks country, as this section was then called. Out of a desert they came, and pursuing their way northward, back into what was then almost a desert they went. We can well imagine their delight at the sight of the vast, oak-forested delta covered with knee-high grasses. We can imagine, too, their chafing at the delay here occasioned by the necessity of getting their animals in condition to proceed farther. All were keenly anxious to reach the foot of the rainbow. And when, after toil and trouble, hardship, misfortune and ill-luck, they failed to find it, we can imagine them as keenly anxious to return to the delightful land they had left.
The first to really settle there was a trader named Woods, who with a party of about fifteen men arrived in December of 1850. This party came from Mariposa and was well equipped with saddle and pack ani- mals. arms, implements of building, etc. They located on the south bank of the Kaweah river, about seven miles east of Visalia, where they built a substantial log house. Of the fate of this party accounts vary somewhat. The accepted version is that in the spring of '51, an Indian bearing the name of Francisco, speaking some Spanish, and probably one of the renegades from the ranchos of the coast, with a number of Kaweahs, of whom he appeared to be chief, ordered the settlers to leave that section of the country within ten days, with the alternative of death if they remained beyond the allotted time. The settlers agreed to go and made preparations for their departure, burying the provisions and such farming implements as they pos- sessed and proceeded to gather their stock. While thus engaged the tenth day passed, and the Indians returned to fulfill their threat. Ten of the settlers were killed while hunting their stock, two made their escape, one of whom was wounded.
The savages then approached the house in which was Woods and another. They professed friendship, and thus removed the appre- hensions of their victims, who were unconscious of the fate of their fellows. One of the whites was asked to hold up a target that the
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Indians might exhibit their skill with the bow and arrow; he com- plied. whereupon the treacherous Kaweahs turned their aim upon him and quickly shot him to death. Woods fled to the cabin and fastened the door. This the savages attacked with great fury, but it was strong and resisted their assaults. Woods had a single rifle and a short supply of ammunition, and with this he attempted to defend himself. Of all this we have the reports of Indians only, as from the time the two escaped none other was left to tell the story of the treachery and the tragedy. The entrapped man determined to sell his life as dearly as possible. As opportunity offered he fired through the apertures of the logs and with deadly effect, as during the contest seven of the Indians were killed. At last the seanty ammunition was exhausted, and the despairing condition of the helplessness overcame the brave Woods. The assailants, finding their prisoner no longer able to do them harm, renewed their efforts on the door, until it at last gave way and the enemy was in their power. Woods had made a brave defense, had slayed and wounded many of their number and a revenge in consonance with the Indian spirit was determined upon. This was nothing less than flaying him alive. The doomed man was bound down and while defying his torturers, his skin was taken from his body and afterwards nailed to an oak tree.
According to Stephen Barton the cause of the outbreak as given by the Indians was that Indians from the north sought the aid of the Kaweahs as allies, representing that the whites were seizing their country and driving them ont. When the tribes of this valley declined to assist the visitors, these made war upon them and cap- tured many of their women. The majority of them fled to the hills, the few remaining slaughtering the Woods party. Other accounts are that from seven hundred to one thousand Indians took part in the butchery.
A party headed by a man named Lane arrived within a day or so after the massacre and rescued a wounded man, whose name was Boden, and carried him back with them to Mariposa, where he recovered. To C. R. Wingfield, Boden gave a detailed account of the fight at the Woods cabin.
A report of the massacre was taken to Fort Miller, on the San Joaquin river, and a detachment of troops in command of General Patten marched to the scene. The log house stood intact and evi- dence of the brave defense, the massacre and the butchery remained. What was left of the bodies was buried and work was commenced on the construction of a fort about half a mile from the Woods cabin. but before its completion the troops were withdrawn.
The above story is essentially as given by Stephen Barton in his early history of Tulare county, his data being obtained from several of the first settlers. In the issue of the Visalia Sun dated
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September 5, 1860, Abraham Hilliard, who arrived in the spring of '54 and lived for three months in the Woods cabin, gives practically the same version, placing the date of the massacre, however, as Decem- ber 13, 1850.
Gilbert M. L. Dean, who arrived in the Four Creeks country when a lad about twelve years of age, states that his father's family came from Texas in a party conducted by Nat Vise. Both the Vise and Dean families remained for a time at Los Angeles, and Vise, taking young Dean with him, left for the northern country, traveling on horseback, and with a pack outfit. They remained a few days near the Kaweah. Vise decided to push onward to the mines and left the Dean boy with Loomis St. John (for whom the St. John river was afterwards named), who then had a cabin near the river. about a half mile from that afterwards constructed by the Woods party. Thus the general belief that the latter structure was the first permanent habitation erected by white men within the present limits of Tulare county is disputed by Dean, who was living in St. John's cabin when the Woods party arrived to establish their settle- ment.
St. John and his young companion, who were glad to have neigh- bors of their own race, went over one day where they had before seen Woods and his men felling trees and building their house. They were surprised to hear no wood-chopping or other noise when they approached, and when near the cabin, which was almost completed, they were horrified to see the body of a man lying on the ground. The skin had been removed and was fastened to the bark of a large oak tree hard by on the bank of the stream. They were unable to find any other member of the party, alive or dead, and saw no Indians.
Soldiers and others arrived within a day or two, among them being some of the men who had been with Woods. They stated that Woods had gone to the cabin to prepare dinner or had remained there after breakfast and was attacked by the Indians when alone at the cabin. The others heard the firing of Woods' gun and the shont- ing of the Indians, and being unarmed or poorly armed and unable to reach the cabin to assist Woods, they hid their axes and mauls and saved themselves by flight.
Dean says he never heard of any other person than Woods having been killed at that time, but does not remember to have heard whether any of the survivors were wounded or molested by the Indians. The Woods cabin was used for a schoolhouse afterwards, and Dean and his brother attended school there later, when, after his return to Los Angeles, the Dean family came to the Kaweah settle- ment to reside permanently. Dean was therefore at this place as a pupil in the first school in Tulare county and he still has a vivid
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recollection of the locality. When visiting the place, with others, a few years ago he at once recognized the tree on which Woods' skin was hung by the Indians and pointed out the location of the house and about the spot where Woods' body lay, and an involuntary shudder was noticed to pass through the old gentleman's frame as he stood there. Although the oldest resident of Tulare county, the pioneer of Tulare pioneers, he is still vigorous, retains all his faculties perfectly and remembers distinctly the principal events of that early time, many of which he participated in.
Apparently unterrified by the fate of the Woods party, settlers and traders continued to straggle in. In the fall of 1851, C. R. Wing- field and A. A. Wingfield arrived from Mariposa. On the way they met two men named MeKenzie and Ridley, who had been trading with the Indians for several years and who were somewhere in the neighborhood when the Woods party was slain. A bridge had been built across the Kaweah near the Woods cabin, but there was no settlement. The Wingfields settled near the cabin, laying claim to the land from the river sonthward. They found the Indians friendly and sociable, and although their onthit was within the reach of Imm dreds of this people and contained a multiplicity of small articles, yet they never missed so much as a needle.
In December of the same year, Nathaniel and Abner Vise came to what is now Visalia and built a log cabin on the north bank of Mill creek. On the site of the camps of these two pairs of brothers were afterwards built the two towns that contended for the honor of being the seat of justice of Tulare county. These two pairs of brothers. between whose camps were seven miles of almost unbroken jungle, appear to have been the only settlers in the country with a fixed domicile. They were unknown to each other and ignorant of the other's whereabouts.
The state legislature was in session. Many first-class politicians at Mariposa were either out of a job or possessed of one the emolu- ments of which were not satisfactory. These events and conditions would not have interested either the brothers Vise or the Wingfields. Yet so interwoven are the strands of destiny that life or death to the Wingfields was later to depend on the activity of the Mariposa schem- ers and their "pull" with the legislators. It was at the behest of this horde of hungry office-seekers that the legislature passed an act and the same was approved April 20, 1852, as follows:
"The county of Mariposa is hereby subdivided as follows: Be- ginning at the summit of the coast range, at the corner of Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties; thence running in a northeasterly direction to the ridge dividing the waters of the San Joaquin and Kings rivers; thence along the ridge to the summit of the Sierra; thence in the same direction to the state line; thence sontheasterly
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along said line to the county of Los Angeles; thence sonthwesterly along the line of Los Angeles county to Santa Barbara; thence along the summit of the coast range to the point of beginning.
"The southern portion of Mariposa county so cut off, shall be called Tulare county. The seat of justice shall be at the log cabin on the south side of Kaweah creek, near the bridge built by Dr. Thomas Payne, and shall be called Woodsville, until changed by the people as provided by law.
"During the second week of July next there shall be chosen for Tulare county one county judge, one county attorney, one county clerk, one recorder, one sheriff, one county surveyor, one assessor, one coroner and one treasurer.
"The county judge chosen under this act shall hold his office for two years from next October, and until his successor is elected and (qualified. The other officers elected shall hold their respective offices for one year, and until their successors are elected and qualified. The successors of the officers elected under this act shall be chosen at the general elections established by law, which take place next pro- ceding the expiration of their respective terms."
James D. Savage, M. B. Lewis, John Boling and W. H. McMillen were appointed commissioners to carry out the law and conduct the election.
The prime mover in this scheme to form a new county was William H. Harvey. He and his associates knew of the massacre of the Woods party and, fully expecting to have to fight their way to the Four Creeks, placed the expedition under the command of Major James D. Savage.
Orlando Barton says: "Major Savage's party as it left Mari- posa was composed mostly of men on horseback. Many men with families prepared to follow with teams. The first general rendezvous was on Grand Island. A settlement was already forming on King's river. I have heard it stated that the office-seekers from Mariposa hired enough Whigs to come with them to outvote the Democrats on Arkansas Flat. On Grand Island, July 8th, the commissioners held their first meeting. They ordered an election to be held on July 10, 1852, and appointed William J. Campbell to act as the inspector at Poole's Ferry and William Dill to act as inspector at Woodsville. These were the only precincts established. All the wagons with the women and children stayed on Grand Island, while Major Savage marshaled the fighting men for the advance on Four ('reeks.
"Including the board of commissioners they were fifty-two strong and on the morning of July 9th they started from Poole's Ferry to cross the plains. It lacked about an hour and a half of sundown when they arrived in the outskirts of the timber at the foot of Venice hills. Here they saw hostile Indians. Major Savage's party rode along the
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southwest side of the Venice hills, firing right and left at every Indian they saw.
RESCUE OF THE WINGFIELDS
"On the morning of July 8, 1852, three hundred armed Indians «ame to the Wingfield brothers' camp and took them and an Indian boy who was with them prisoners, and marched them across the Kaweah and St. John rivers. Near the north bank of the St. John, the Indians tied the Wingfield brothers and their companion hand and foot and laid them on the ground. The Wingfields were kept in this place all one day and the succeeding night. The 9th of July was hot and sultry. The Indians were morose and sulky. They stayed at a distance from the Wingfields and talked only to themselves. Neither the Wingfields nor their companion could understand the canse of their imprison- ment. They knew nothing of the advance of Major Savage's party. They did not know that their captors constituted one of the forces sent to hold the fords of the St. John against the men from Mariposa.
"If I were a novelist I would now tell what the Wingfield broth- ers thought at this crisis in their lives. I would tell how they were tormented by swarms of flies, armies of ants, and cold lizards with poisonous fangs. But as I am only an historian I can tell only what I know. Charley Wingfield said that he did not know what was to become of them. The fate of Woods was fresh in their minds and we may reasonably be permitted to guess that they expected to be skinned.
"The sun was about an hour high in the west when an Indian came running around the southernmost of the Venice hills holding one of his arms straight up in the air. His arm, which was covered with blood, was shot through with a bullet. Some of the Indians who were guarding the Wingfields ran forward to meet him. A short palaver was held. Then three or four of them went to the place where the Wingfields were tied down. They untied them and then all the In- dians suddenly disappeared.
"The Wingfields went to the river and after swimming it, were climbing up on its sonth bank, when they saw Major Savage's party coming around the point of the hill from the direction of Mount View Park. The Wingfields re-crossed the river and joined the party.
THE ELECTION
"As soon as Major Savage's party arrived. the commissioners rommeneed to prepare for the election. For this purpose they selected the tree that stood farthest out on the open ground. This was done so that they could get the benefit of any breeze that might be blowing. There has been recently a sign placed on this tree and any person can find it. It stands about half way between the Tulare Irrigation com- pany's flume and the Southern Pacific railroad bridge across the St. John river. The pioneers occupied the ground between the election
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tree and the river, and utilized the shade of several other trees. Mes- sengers were sent back to Poole's ferry and night found the Mariposa adventurers in possession of the camp that the captors of the Wing- fields had so recently occupied."
The poll list of the Woodsville precinct was as follows: Augustus John, S. D. F. Edwards, Early Lyon, Martin Morris, J. B. Marsh, John A. Patterson, T. Hale, Richard Matthews, J. M. Snoekters, R. P. Cardwell, S. P. Carter, C. Keener, Benj. Mettors, A. B. Gordon, J. M. Jackson, Henry Crowell, Wn. B. Hobbs, John Reefe. Clark Royster, S. M. Brown, J. G. Morris, P. F. Hesberp, B. B. Harris, A. II. Corbitt, L. B. Lewis, William Pedersen, W. C. MeDougal, George H. Rhodes, Joseph A. Tivy, W. H. Howard, Charles J. Jones, Isaac McDonald, Joshua Sledd, W. H. Erving, James D. Savage, Robert F. Parks, J. L. Avenill, William Dougle, W. W. McMillen, William Dill, Penny Donglas, George H. Rogers, L. St. John, James Wate, A. J. Lawrence, Thomas McCormick, B. B. Overton, James Davis, A. A. Wingfield, R. Selmuffler, A. M. Cameron. (. R. Wingfield voted at Poole's ferry, as did Nathaniel Vise.
In looking over this poll list the observer is at once struck with the infrequency of well-known names of early pioneers. This was because there were few bona fide settlers in the settlement.
After the election the commissioners remained in camp, received the returns from Poole's ferry and canvassed the entire vote. The following officers were elected: for county judge, Walter 11. Harvey; county attorney, F. H. Sanford; county clerk, E. D. F. Edwards; recorder, A. B. Gordon; sheriff, William Dill; surveyor, Joseph A. Tivy; assessor, James B. Davis; coroner, W. W. McMillen ; treasurer, L. C. Frankenberger.
On July 12th, the county officers took the oath of office and the county seat remained for some time under the election tree, although most of the county officers returned shortly to Mariposa.
Edwards, the county clerk, was killed in a quarrel with a man named Bob Collins, shortly after his arrival in Mariposa, and soon afterwards Major Savage was killed by Judge Harvey. Franken- berger. in a fit of delirium tremens, wandered off into the swamp and died. Later in the season, Dr. Everett was engaged in gambling at Woodsville with a man named Ball and a dispute arose about $5. Everett asked Ball if he was armed. Ball replied that he was not. whereupon Everett commanded him to go and arm himself. Ball said that he would and started for his camp. Everett said he would go with him and see that he did it, pulling out his pistol at the same time. Ball then told him that the best way was to leave the matter till another day and it would probably be settled. "No," said Ever- ett, "one of us must die now." Ball stooped over and carelessly rubbed his leg, saying, "If I must fight, I shall fight for blood." and
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at the same time suddenly lifting his pantaloons and drawing a revolver from his boot, shot Everett dead without drawing the pistol from its scabbard. Ball was examined before a justice of the peace and discharged. W. J. Campbell and Loomis St. John were justices of the peace and they, acting as associate judges with the county judge. constituted the court of sessions by which county affairs were administered.
At the first meeting of the court of sessions held October 4, 1852, Judge Harvey presiding, a license for a ferry on Kings river and for a toll bridge at the Kaweah was granted. Thomas MeCormick was appointed assessor to succeed Everett, and P. A. Rainholt was named to succeed J. C. Frankenberger. An election proclamation was issued for the general election to be held on the first Tuesday of November, 1852, for county and state officers and for presidential electors. Bona fide settlers had now commenced to arrive. Among the first were S. C. Brown, A. H. Murray and family, three Matthews families, three Glenn families, Colonel Baker and family, Bob Stev- enson and family, Abraham Hilliard and family, O. K. Smith, Samuel Jennings, Tom Willis, Tom Baker, G. F. Ship, J. C. Reed, Jomm Cutler, Nathan Dillon and Edgar Reynolds.
Nat Vise induced most of these parties to accompany him to the neighborhood of his claim, where they could, he said, find better land. They were pleased with this locality and got Vise to release his title to the claim he had first taken up, with a view to laying ont a town and having it become the county seat. For protection against Indians a stockade was built large enough to hold the wagons and supplies and several log houses. This fort was situated on ground now bounded by School, Bridge, Oak and Garden streets, and was constructed by setting puncheons upright in a ditch about three feet deep. An extension of about four feet was made at each corner which permitted a raking fire on the side to be directed against an attacking party, should an attempt be made 'to climb over.
The naming of the new settlement appeared to be the occasion of some dispute. The majority of the citizens favored naming it after its founder, Nathaniel Vise, but the board of supervisors desig- nated it Buena Vista. The word Visalia first appears in the record of the court of sessions in August. 1853, when an order was entered dividing the county into townships. Woodsville and Visalia town- ships were divided by a line running north and south from the cross- ing of Canoe creek.
Its derivation is believed by some to be from Vise and Sally or Salia. the name of Vise's wife. Others believe it to be a combination of Vise with Sa-ha-la, the Indian name for sweat house, and still others think it merely the termination "alia," as in Vandalia, C'en- tralia, ete., chosen on account of its pleasing sound.
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In October of 1853 was held the first session of the board of supervisors. Town lots were parceled out and the record shows the entry, "Ordered that the seat of justice be Buena Vista." In the records of the court of sessions for February, 1854, the name Buena Vista appeared for the last time, all subsequent proceedings being dated Visalia. On the 11th of March, 1854, the board of supervisors entered an order granting the prayer of certain petitioners that the name of the seat of justice be Visalia. So much concerns the dispute over the name. The election by which the transfer of the seat of justice from Woodsville was effected was held in 1853. Judge Cutler was the champion of Woodsville and Judge Thomas Baker of Visalia. The vote was very close and bribery and corruption were alleged to have been used. The friends of Woodsville charged that the result in favor of Visalia was from the bribery of two or three voters and there was at least one notable case where one man obtained an eligible location a half mile south of the site of Visalia and that he thus seemed to desert his Woodsville friends.
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Although Baker carried the day in respect to his choice of county seat, lie was defeated for judge, as Cutler proved far the more pop- ular. There was constructed a sort of courthouse of rough boards affording an enclosure and a shelter and records were kept on scraps of paper and deposited in a wooden box. Much of the proceedings and accounts were kept in memory.
At the session of the board of supervisors in March, 1854, many town lots were sold and an order was entered for building a jail sixteen feet in the clear inside and ten feet between floors. The building to be two stories high, to be built of hewed logs eight inches square, dove-tailed and pinned at the corners; the wall to be double with a space between six inches wide, to be filled with broken rock. The floor was to be of logs of similar size, planked, and the planking to be held down by "double tens," one nail in every superficial inch. This order was to be published in a Mariposa newspaper. Although this was the first jail and courthouse in the new county, it was not built in time to accommodate the first prisoners or to furnish a place in which to hold the first trial.
The first arrest in the county was that of Judge Harvey for the killing of Major Savage, but nothing came of it. As previously related, Ball was acquitted for the killing of Everett. The first case tried in the county was before a justice of the peace. It was that of a young Indian charged with shooting an arrow into a work-ox whereby the animal was more or less disabled. At this time few persons had allowed themselves to think of a lighter punishment for an Indian than that of summary execution. All conenrred in the opinion that such mischief should not be toler- ated. The mass of the Indians were disposed to be friendly, but
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